IAB Attribution Hub

Digital Attribution Methodologies

Attribution is the process of identifying a set of user actions (“events”) across screens and touch points that contribute in some manner to a desired outcome, and then assigning value to each of these events.

In digital advertising, attribution measurement is most widely performed by media buyers trying to understand which aspects of digital media campaigns are contributing most to campaign performance. Digital attribution is done at a user-specific level, through efforts to assign a consistent user identifier across all analyzed events. This is opposed to traditional media performance analysis, where ROI is generally understood at the macro user-group level because there is no consistent user identifier available.

Further Reading

IAB committees and councils have developed a broad set of material that collectively help the marketplace better navigate the complexity of attribution and broader applications of data to understand marketing and advertising performance. Some of the material is intended to simply describe marketer’s perceptions of attribution and measurement issues, while others provide prescriptive advice for navigating certain topics or processes.

Below you can find some of our most recent work addressing attribution related topics: